Leading off a conversation with Jeff: a brief summary of regulation

To be fair, the US government did not interfere in the economy to a large degree until the latter part of the 19th century when socialist ideas infiltrated the US and the Progressives pushed for government intervention. The idea that the government was needed to help the little man fight greedy businessmen was all it took for Roosevelt and Wilson to have a moral justification to control the economy -- this is when the Interstate Commerce Act and The Sherman Antitrust Act were created leading to the, among others, Interstate Commerce Commission, the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission. Along with the creation of the Fed, all this interference in the economy led to The Great Depression which led to the New Deal.

It was the people of the country who begged for protection, but the government was all to willing to meet this demand. Once regulation was set up to level playing fields, businesses thought they were being shafted so they clamored for regulation. The government, when a gang was in office sympathetic to business, was eager to meet this demand, so that now you have warring parties of "the people" against the "evil rich", with government reaping the rewards of power, growing bigger and bigger. The quickest way to riches, tremendous perks, privileges and all the power you can stand, is to get elected. Now, government in one big feeding trough that attracts the worst in our society to feed off it. An honest working man or woman, or an honest businessman or busineswoman, has little chance unless they hold their noses, compromise their principles and go to the trough, too, which is demeaning to the honest and proud among us.

So the silent, principled ones among us wait and suffer under all the regulation, and some call it a necessary evil -- but one day they will get enough.

A little bit of slavery is never a good thing - it leads to more slavery.

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The case for free markets can be made better by a pencil: an oldie but a good one

http://www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/Essays/rdPncl1.html

When you apply this to computers, spaceships, skyscrapers, automobiles, etc., you begin to get a picture of the complexity of the market and why control is futile. Can you imagine some US central authority trying to direct the processes involved in all the production and co-ordination that make up the markets that deliver goods and services? It's why socialism fails.

The fact that so many disconnected efforts come together to produce a simple pencil is astounding and a testament to human ingenuity and co-operation. Government should get involved in this process only when citizens are negatively affected as in pollution or fraud, but should use their power of regulation very sparingly with the fist presumption being they are not needed.

It's only when government makes it their business to attempt to control and guide the processes that the laughable attempts begin to damage a free market.

I told myself I wouldn't do this

but this is too tempting. What am I talking about? Inflating tires so that we become energy independent. Now, the media is backing it up with facts to show that inflating tires will conserve about 3% of our energy needs.

It has turned surreal. The absurdist rascal in me loves this. This type of cosmic humor is right up my alley. In the middle of a serious debate about energy, a presidential candidate prosposes that inflating tires will achieve what others are prosposing as long term solutions to energy independence. This is wonderful. Comic relief is what we need right now and Obama and the media have provided it. The media has removed the curtain, stepped to center stage and are now waving their Obama flags with unbridled enthusiam.

Thank God we are at this stage where there is no longer any pretension of objectivity. Everyone knows the players on each side. The mainstream media wants Obama to be president and that's that. It's official. I don't know what McCain is going to do -- I guess he will have to lobby talk radio to combat the MSM. It's getting close, baby, and it's war.

Who cares who will be the best president, or if their policies are stupid or smart, it's game time and there's no turning back -- the teams have been picked and we're ready to rumble. 

A good article to study

Brian wrote a great article about the Fed and made an analogy to a recent Quantas event which brings up a pertinent subject as it relates to overreaching governments.. As I told Brian in my comment, Bernanke is doing a great job manipulating what should never have been manipulated. Bernanke comes along during a time where manipulation of the economy is a standard government practice -- so to say Bernanke shouldn't do what he was appointed to do would be ludicrous. Brian's point exactly, except he seems to be making the point as if free marketers would single out Bernanke as an orginal manipulator. Bernanke isn't the problem - the creation of the Fed in the early twentieth century is the problem.

Brian, though he acknowledges Friedman's influence on Bernanke, fails to explain the significance of Friedman, which is that he pretty much showed us the Great Depression was the handiwork of the newly created Fed. It's good that we have a Fed Chairman who understands the destructive nature of that which he has been given power over, but the irony is powerful.

Brians writes "Free market enthusiasts would argue that his intervention is artificially  postponing the eventual asset deflation reflective of a dour economy.  I’d argue that his actions were necessary to promote confidence."

Well, this free market enthusiast would look a little deeper and say that manipulation is standard practice since the inception of the Fed and what we are left with is arguments like this -- who is the best manipulator? A good free market enthusiast would argue that government intervention in the financial markets should have never started. I agree with Brian -- if we are going to have a money supply manipulator then Bernanke is a good one. However this is pragmatism reduced to piddling amidst a far greater concern which is freedom of the financial markets to take their natural courses. To say that Bernanke should do nothing at this point after decades of meddling is, of course, wrong headed, so Brian is right on that point. And any free market enthusiast who would argue that intervention at this point is wrong has been asleep for a long time. Hell, intervention is our way of life. Hopefully Bernanke can keep the wheels from coming off during his stay in power.

But what then? We are dependent on manipulators and there will not always be a Bernanke in power -- this is the problem a free market enthusiast would argue. Like the crew at Quantas, sometimes you can't worry how the mule got in the ditch, you just get him out. However, if the mule continues to get in the ditch on a regular basis, you might want to find out why. The "why" is the Fed and intervention itself -- with Quantas, the why is poor maintenance. 

There is however a big difference between Quantas and the Fed -- at Quantas the crew and passengers voluntarily risk their lives, with the Fed we are forced to risk the life of our economy.

Libertarian history and why government ain't all evil

A good book to read to learn about the history of libertarian thought is Radicals For Capitalism: A Freewheeling History Of The Modern American Libertarian Movement, by Brian Doherty.

Talk about strange and interesting! It's a wonderful trip into the minds of many interesting characters, alliances of socialists, conservatives, anarchists, traditional liberals and just about every strain of thought imaginable including 60s mysticism.

As I have said before I am not a Libertarian, as in member of the Libertarian Party, but have a libertarian spirit. I am not an anarchist, either. However, I'm closer to an anarchist than I am a statist. As an American the roots go back to Jefferson and Paine.

From my perspective government has a vital role to play in preserving our freedoms through constitutionally limited actions, such as policing the streets, protecting the borders and settling disputes in a courts. Government should be under our control and not in control of us while maintaining order. It's a tough job and the problem is that government has grown beyond control, has become bloated, unresponsive and too intrusive. With so many regulations created it sets up system where lobbyists lobby for favors and it breeds the worst sort of arrangements and relationships.

This can be turned around by demanding a better system, a smaller government and less intrusion into private affairs.  However, government plays a vital role when limited. Inspiration from the bully pulpit can go a long way toward keeping a nation's spirit lifted during hard times; a strong defense system can enable a country to go about it's business in stability and courage without fear of attack; a fair and rational court system can ensure justice and enforce the contracts that make the markets possible; a strong police force can allow citizens to enjoy their environment without fear of attack or physical coercion of any sort; a strong representation can speak the voice of those represented to ensure that the people have an active role in governance.

So, I am far from an anarchist and I value the role a limited government plays in civilized society. For this reason I think it is important to speak out against abuses of power and to voice a concern about a government that is misusing its power and overreaching into the private concerns that make this nation great. The tradition of libertarian thought is varied, strong at times, weak at times, but persistent in its common goal of protecting our freedoms to the greatest extent possible.

All we have to do is look back at the carnage created by too much government control to realize the importance of our rights and why the individual must never be silenced, taxed and regulated into submission to tyrants or enslaved by a ruthless, out-of-control state. Freedom, peace and creativty are noble goals and I refuse to believe that people will be so ignorant as to sacrifice these vital aspects of being human to safety and protection. Once I believe this I am a part of the problem. What I do believe is that the road is filled with obstacles, but what I see is a long history of movement toward the achievement of these goals. It's too important to be in the hands of cynics, politicians and the hip-irony of modern pundits.